Saturday, 6 September 2014

It has been some week – a politician – Jim Murphy - on the stump, shocked that - in Labour heartlands betrayed and devastated by Westminster Labour, Tory and Coalition Government’s - they don’t like him or what he stands for and show their distaste, and their commitment to doing things differently, by turning out in force and heckling him.

And an egg was thrown – shock, horror! An egg thrown at a political event! Murphy makes himself utterly ridiculous by alleging plots and intimidation.

One of his even more delusional supporters compared the egg throwing to the assassination of Martin Luther King!

Sundry Scottish Labour apparatchiks get their snide digs in at their country, and one Scottish Tory MP for an English constituency puts in his slimy tuppenceworth.

Angus Robertson gets Dave in a fluster bluster over his failure to debate, then Speaker Bercow tries to silence and patronise Angus MacNeil, who was merely trying to correct Cameron's torrent of blatant factual inaccuracies and misrepresentations Speaker Bercow, cordially detested by a significant section of the House, is in deep shit over his attempt to select an assistant in defiance of House of Commons selection procedures.

Roll on independence, when we'll be free of this sordid bunch!

Jeane Freeman does a brilliant job here in the face of a hectoring Andrew Neil, the archetypal Brit/Scot journalist, worried about polls narrowing, making the fatal mistake of trying to patronise and bully one of the most incisive voices in Scottish politics.

But Jeane, in an otherwise perfect performance, still leaves the same gap in the argument as all the rest of the YES campaign - that the UK Parliament can weaken or claw back any devolved power, on the NHS or anything else - and they could, and will do it as their privatisation plans gain traction after a No. And who could stop them in a defeated, demoralised YES campaign under such circumstances?

George Robertson describes Scotland as "a minor entity in the North of Britain" That's how he sees Scotland. That's how he sees his country - if indeed he regards Scotland as his country and not UK.

That's how he's always seen it - how NATO sees it, how UK sees it. Of course it's a very handy "minor entity in North of Britain" for storing WMDs well away from population centres in England, but within 20 miles of Scotland most populous area. It's a handy "minor entity" for cannon fodder troops, for low-flying exercises, for safe havens for nuclear armed submarines, for its oil revenues - and for electing Labour nonentities to safe and profitable seats and highly profitable careers, well away from the "minor entity in North of Britain".

Then we have a British financial establishment - as reported by their pink house journal, The Financial Times – in panic mode as they belatedly wake up to the polls, and the fact that, in contradiction of the UK media crap fed to them (incl. by FT) that the Scots were going to safely say a big No Thanks to independence, instead were showing distinct signs of uttering a great, big, joyous YES.

So the financial establishment joins the M.O.D. and sundry complacent politicians in failing to sense the zeitgeist and signally failing make any contingency plans for a probability that was never less the 35%, and has been rapidly moving to 50%!

Would you entrust your savings, your business, your country’s defence and your children’s future to such an inept bunch of gandy dancers and railroad men?Naw …

Sunday, 29 June 2014

A friend in England who takes a keen interest in Scottish affairs, and has lived and worked in Scotland, said that I should not expect too much from independence, and that it might not be Shangri La. I replied as follows -

REPLY

Whatever an independent Scotland's future is, it will have a few certainties -

1. It won't have weapons of mass destruction based in its waters, threatening the environment and the largest population centre in Scotland.

2. It won't have to bear the cost of the irrelevant weapons system.

3. It won't have a support a proportion of the corrupt, inflated and undemocratic House of Lords.

4. It will have located in Scotland a large number of a offices, functions and services with associated jobs that we currently pay for, but are located in S.E.E.

5. It will have a defence force that is truly a defence force, not an attack force, one that is proportionate to our needs and to real threats, not the "induced paranoia threats" required to justify the armaments industry and grease the lucrative revolving doors between the MOD, private industry and government.

6. It will prioritise its spending and use of resources on the needs of the people, especially the poor, sick and vulnerable, however limited its budgets and resources are.

7. It will continue to run an NHS that is free at the point of need, and not privatised by the back door to line the pockets of politicians and their partners in private healthcare.

8. It will recognise its role in protecting the environment and the planet, not pay lip service to it while despoiling it.

9. It will maintain an education system based on ability to learn, not ability to pay.

10. And lastly, whatever it does will be done to itself, by itself, with the governments it elects - every time, not the ones chosen by rUK. In a word, it will be an independent nation.